Dennis Castle Millenicom InterviewHear What The CEO & Owner Has To Say!

Millenicom
offers a variety of prepaid broadband products and services, including
USB modems, and a MiFi hotspot running on 3G and 4G wireless broadband.
Dennis Castle, CEO and Owner, was kind enough to answer some
questions about his company. Thank you for your time Dennis!

Interview Date:
November 10, 2011

1.

Can you share some of
the history of Millenicom, what
inspired
you to start the company, as well as describe the origin of the name?

[Castle] Millenicom
began in June of 1998, the exciting approach of the new millennium,
and, thus, the choice of the name. I always assumed this
whole
computer/Internet thing would catch on.

2.

How many employees and
customers does Millenicom currently have?

[Castle]
The IRS is always asking those questions.

3.

Prepaid
broadband is becoming increasingly popular with all major carriers
making a play; how does Millenicom differentiate yourself?

[Castle] We
are already prepaid, in the sense that a customer pays for the upcoming
month. The fact we don’t require a contract frees
the client
to
start and stop service at their discretion.

4.

Millenicom is an MVNO
of Sprint and Verizon,
correct? I
assume certain devices run on one carrier or the other. Can a
Sprint modem roam on Verizon and vice versa due to your
relationships? Do customers need to be concerned about where
they
will have coverage?

[Castle]
Unfortunately the Plans are all carrier-specific. One (major)
benefit from us is if a client moves from one coverage area to another
they can switch Plans and we can apply service fees seamlessly to the
new one.

5.

The prepaid broadband
market started with truly unlimited
plans,
however, once consumers really started to catch on, carriers quickly
moved to capped or severely throttled plans to ensure a profitable
business plan. Millenicom’s current plans appear to
be of
very
high value (i.e. a high data allowance for a comparatively competitive
price). In addition, the MVNO model is notoriously expensive;
do
you feel that this pricing is sustainable if customers truly use that
much data?

[Castle]
Although we run into clients that use a daunting amount of data
transfer, it is surprising to note that our aggregate usage for those
on our Unlimited Plan is under 2 gigabytes a month.

6.

Does
Millenicom have any plans to launch a pay-as-you-go plan that allows
customers to load funds and pay either per MB or per day for a given
data allotment? I ask because I get a LOT of inquiries from
customers who don’t want to commit to a monthly expense, but
rather
would like to use it occasionally for a few days, on the weekends, or a
week at a time here and there.

[Castle]
Our system of monthly service without a contract is the closest we can
come to the classic prepay system with cell phones.

7.

The
data allotment between the Advanced Plan and the Standard Plan is so
dramatically different based on whether or not the customer buys a
modem; can you describe the strategy/positioning around this approach?

[Castle]
We initially allowed 5 gigabytes for the Standard Plan and then
negotiated a 10 gigabyte service for the Advanced Plan. After
a
period of time we were able to make the Advanced Plan more attractive.

8.

Where are Millenicom
products currently distributed? Do you have plans for dealer
or retail expansion?

[Castle]
Millenicom is exclusively online, we ship out of Portland OR.
We
are holding off generating retail locations until we have a
facility-based solution.

9.

Do you have any plans
for international programs that either
allow for Millenicom modems to roam internationally, or to be activated
on international local carrier services?

[Castle]
Our current strategy is to create an alliance with International mobile
broadband companies where our clients use their service while they are
in their country and we allow their clients to use our service while
traveling in the States. That strategy is easier said than
done,
though. Many countries have one or two socialized carriers
who
have limited incentive to provide such an excellent system for their
clients.

10.

Is
there anything else that you would like for prospective customers to
know about Millenicom as they contemplate their prepaid broadband
options?

[Castle]
We offer the fastest and most reliable mobile broadband service
available, we offer the largest nationwide coverage by far, we offer
the largest amount of monthly data transfer.

We have a peerless
reputation amongst those who live in rural areas, those who travel such
as truckers and RV’ers, those who need to move fast and
furious like
storm chasers and the like. If you look up their forums
online
you’ll see the name Millenicom appear often.

It is our desire to
be as clear and straight-forward to our prospective clients as
possible. We don’t hide fees, we don’t
charge overage, we
don’t
insist on a contract. We can be reached 24-hours using our
chat
interface or by emailing us or by calling.